Big Ten Hockey Conference

[Robb]

On another note, I do not see why the Big Ten could not award its championship title like the Ivy League does with its six members in the ECAC.  The overlapping members of the CCHA and WCHA could arrange all of their schedule openings to play one another each year and then award a Big Ten Champion based upon the overall record against other Big Ten teams.  It seems like this would be the least disruptive approach but I have not encountered it mentioned elsewhere.  Perhaps Big Ten schools do not want to follow the lead of an Ivy League regime.  I tend to think that the Big Ten is more interested in the revenue that will become available from media deals and championships if they become a full conference in their own right and that is why this possibility as been ignored or quashed.

It's all about home games.  As it is now, they have to play half their conference games on the road.  If they started up a B10 non-conference slate of B10 games as well, then half of THOSE games would be on the road, too.  Forming a conference kills two "road game" birds with one stone - play the B10 schools as the conference games (50% of which were going to be on the road anyway), freeing you up to play 70 or 80% of your non-conference games at home.  Home games = massive revenue glut.

[Towerroad]

It seems to me that it means that one more slot in the NCAA Tournament will be taken up with an AQ. That in turn increases the importance of winning the ECAC Tournament. (Or perhaps the Ivy League Tournament?)

[pfibiger]

If the ECAC were to be involved in this, I'd love to see us try to lure in Miami if they're caught floundering. The school fits the academic/athletic ECAC profile as well as any, the furthest ECAC schools are about as far as the furthest WCHA schools (Grand Forks [17hr] vs. Hanover or Providence [15hr])  they've got ties to the ECAC ( both Brekke and Topher Scott are coaching there now ). Once Michigan and Michigan State leave, I think that the athletic profile of the ECAC compares very favorably to what's left of the CCHA.

[ajh258]

On first impression, it seems most logical to group CCHA and WCHA together if all the Big Ten schools leave. Why don't they simply do that?

[Trotsky]

On first impression, it seems most logical to group CCHA and WCHA together if all the Big Ten schools leave. Why don't they simply do that?

I doubt the WCHA would be interested.  They should be fine, particularly since Minnesota will probably always continue to schedule their in-state rivals and NoDak, and other than a random act of kindness I don't see why they would want to sacrifice home dates to Lake State, Miami, Ferris, etc.

The WCHA may take a run at Air Force, though.  They're right down the street from CC and they seem at least competent.

I wonder if Niagara and RIT might be attractive to the now-far-less-Michigan-centric CCHA?

[RatushnyFan]

You profess that you "don't care just about the Big Ten schools" but it appears that your view of Penn State's new program is tinged by your status as an alumnus from Michigan, a Big Ten rival of Penn State.

Not at all.  I really don't care about Penn State one way or the other in terms of hockey.  I do care about Bowling Green, Miami (OH), Lake Superior State, etc.  Letting Penn State flounder around is probably an irresponsible statement (you're right about that), I'm happy if they join an east coast conference (not obvious logistically how this would work either), I don't wish them misfortune.  My personal opinion is that this will negatively impact a lot of smaller schools with strong hockey traditions and it's bad for Division 1 hockey overall.  Mentioning my allegiance to Michigan was meant to show that although I have ties to a "Big Ten" school, I still think that this is horrible.

[Josh '99]

On first impression, it seems most logical to group CCHA and WCHA together if all the Big Ten schools leave. Why don't they simply do that?

I doubt the WCHA would be interested.  They should be fine, particularly since Minnesota will probably always continue to schedule their in-state rivals and NoDak, and other than a random act of kindness I don't see why they would want to sacrifice home dates to Lake State, Miami, Ferris, etc.

The WCHA may take a run at Air Force, though.  They're right down the street from CC and they seem at least competent.

I wonder if Niagara and RIT might be attractive to the now-far-less-Michigan-centric CCHA?

I don't see why, at least geographically; all the other CCHA schools are further away from Niagara and RIT than Michigan and MSU are.  Seems more likely that they'd make a play for Michigan Tech (or, alternately, that the WCHA would try to bring back NMU).  

(Or did you mean "Michigan-centric" to be used in a balance of power sense?)

[Josh '99]

You profess that you "don't care just about the Big Ten schools" but it appears that your view of Penn State's new program is tinged by your status as an alumnus from Michigan, a Big Ten rival of Penn State.

Not at all.  I really don't care about Penn State one way or the other in terms of hockey.  I do care about Bowling Green, Miami (OH), Lake Superior State, etc.  Letting Penn State flounder around is probably an irresponsible statement (you're right about that), I'm happy if they join an east coast conference (not obvious logistically how this would work either), I don't wish them misfortune.  My personal opinion is that this will negatively impact a lot of smaller schools with strong hockey traditions and it's bad for Division 1 hockey overall.  Mentioning my allegiance to Michigan was meant to show that although I have ties to a "Big Ten" school, I still think that this is horrible.

On the other hand:  I don't care about Penn State one way or another in terms of hockey either, but if they have a successful program it increases NCAA hockey's profile in Pennsylvania (which is, overall, probably the "best" hockey state not to have a major DI men's program), and in turn perhaps makes it more likely that Penn could have a DI program again in the future.  (And maybe you could also say the same thing about Navy, who would have another DI program besides Princeton within reasonable driving distance.)

[Josh '99]

Wait hold on...  if the BTHC is coming, does that also mean Harvard is going to join Hockey East?

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

On first impression, it seems most logical to group CCHA and WCHA together if all the Big Ten schools leave. Why don't they simply do that?

I doubt the WCHA would be interested.  They should be fine, particularly since Minnesota will probably always continue to schedule their in-state rivals and NoDak, and other than a random act of kindness I don't see why they would want to sacrifice home dates to Lake State, Miami, Ferris, etc.

The WCHA may take a run at Air Force, though.  They're right down the street from CC and they seem at least competent.

I wonder if Niagara and RIT might be attractive to the now-far-less-Michigan-centric CCHA?

Bobby Mo and Mercyhurst are even closer.  And as long as Huntsville finds a home, I'm OK with whatever happens.  Besides, with a 6 team league, the Big Ten schools will need to schedule plenty of non-conference games.  They'll have lots of slots to schedule their old rivals.

Personally, I'm looking forward to a road trip to see Cornell play at Happy Valley ::banana::

[underskill]

Wait hold on...  if the BTHC is coming, does that also mean Harvard is going to join Hockey East?

only after NCAA Hockey 2012 comes out by EA Sports.

[css228]

@ajh258 I was only saying to do that if the ECAC changes at all, which I'm not sure it needs to.

[css228]

Also What about recruiting? Won't a major university in our backyard (3-4 hours away tops compared to all other non ECAC schools that aren't in the AHA being more like 6 hours) affect our recruiting somewhat?

[RatushnyFan]

You mean in Ontario, Saskatoon, British Columbia, Massachusetts, etc.?  :-D

@Josh - I take your point, a strong Penn State team is nice to have, but what if we've permanently weakened Miami, Western Michigan, BGSU (struggling mightily already), Ferris State, Lake Superior?  My gut tells me that the remaining MN, ND and CO teams in the WCHA will fair better but losing the U of Minnesota and Wisconsin will weaken their conference as well.  In the end, I fear that the college hockey pool may become more concentrated - why would any premier talent want to play in the remaining CCHA?

[Jim Hyla]

You mean in Ontario, Saskatoon, British Columbia, Massachusetts, etc.?  :-D

@Josh - I take your point, a strong Penn State team is nice to have, but what if we've permanently weakened Miami, Western Michigan, BGSU (struggling mightily already), Ferris State, Lake Superior?  My gut tells me that the remaining MN, ND and CO teams in the WCHA will fair better but losing the U of Minnesota and Wisconsin will weaken their conference as well.  In the end, I fear that the college hockey pool may become more concentrated - why would any premier talent want to play in the remaining CCHA?

By that logic, why would any "premier talent", whatever that is, want to play anywhere other than Michigan in the current CCHA? Or putting it closer to home, how the h$ll did Union get all those players to want to play at Union? Small schools compete because they are small, and some kids like small, and because they have a coach that can convince them it's the right place for them. They get kids who want an education and not necessarily want to hop to the pros after 1-2 years (Sound familiar?). If you can't recruit them, it doesn't matter what league you're in.